The Mythotechnic Leadership Afterlife: Digital Animism, Synthetic Ancestors, and the Reconstruction of Authority

Digital-afterlife scholarship has established that media can extend posthumous personhood, digital remains can acquire moral and economic significance, and generative systems can simulate the speech and behavior of deceased persons. These literatures do not yet provide a leadership-centered model of the point at which a simulated presence acquires authority over present conduct. This conceptual article develops Mythotechnic Leadership Afterlife: the continuation or reconstruction of authority through the interaction of technology, memory, culture, narrative, identity, and myth after the originating person or leadership body is absent, dead, inaccessible, or historically displaced. It defines Digital Animism, Synthetic Ancestor, Algorithmic Ancestry, Numinous Infrastructure, and Archival Resurrection. The article distinguishes memorialization from simulation, simulation from synthetic ancestry, and reconstructed authority from dark leadership. It argues that the most consequential digital afterlife may not be the survival of a personality, but the reconstruction of a right to command.